I agree with Coach Deen and I definitely was not complaining. I don't think the new engine is more of the same. I think it is a big improvement! I was simply agreeing that chance still seems to be a factor in game results based on testing.

grindi, nothing has changed with recruiting yet. Outside of player roles that makes it slightly easier to recruit what you want. If a sim has a good team, sim should beat humans at just a slightly lower rate because of the lack of gameplanning advantage. But I don't want the game to be all about gameplanning, but I want talent to reign in most instances. If talent reigns, simai will from time to time do well.

I agree Noah. But that isn't what I'm seeing. Bad teams are beating better teams at about the same rate. Scrodz, I don't give a rats behind about you or your suggestions. I am not going to spend the time to even look it up so save your wise a$$ comments. IF the engine gets changed I will believe the game is changed. Ask Norbert. Nothing has been done to play results logic yet. The upsets will continue at the same rate and the randomness will continue. You will still get the same percentage of upsets. The SIMs will still make you spend far more money than you should to drive them off. In Bava there was a SIM that went 7-2 in the Conf and went to the CC. It was the only SIM in the Conf. I play stuff on other sites and you start with a former SIM team period. When a person leaves a team it is set back to the basic settings. They are positively HORRIBLE. That is the team you get to start. Everybody gets the same when they start. NO CHERRY PICKING. SIM teams DO NOT WIN. Humans then are the only ones getting prizes. Humans are the only ones getting championships. I find it incredible that some of you people are so stupid. This game is basically just like Vegas. WIS is the house. The House never loses. The SIMs ARE the House. The SIMs have a strong influence on the players recruited thus the development of your team. Every win a SIM gets is a win for the house. Every dollar you spend to drive off a SIM is win for the House. If I want to play against a computer I can buy Stratomatic Football. There I pay one time and I can play against the computer all I want with only the initial games cost. On this site I want to play against other players. It SHOULD be a level playing field but it isn't. You don't start out with the same level team. You don't get to recruit the same level players. you can jump in and cherry pick a team. It is NOT a level playing field.

As to the changes that have been made....Great job Norbert. You have the makings of a truly great game. But you need to change the heart of the game and not just the clothes. Sorry if anybody is offended, except scrodz, but I am telling what I see. Why other players want to attack me, or anyone else, for how I,or others, see things makes no sense. You can state what you are seeing and I won't attack you because your uptake on the game is different than mine. But that is the biggest problem with a lot of the yahoos on this forum. If someone has a different opinion or does things differently than they do, they attack you. Well guess what chuckleheads....I DON"T CARE. I am going to state my piece regardless of what you say or do and you should realize by now that by attacking me personally, I just yammer more. So quit attacking, scrodz, and I will have made my summation of how I see things and then be quiet.

Actually the play results have changed considerably. They still need some tweaking, sure, but they are quite a bit different than 2.0 and I've posted the details many times. But the proof is in the pudding and if you don't think you see changes, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong.

As far as Sim AI teams always losing, that might be a philosophy on whatever other site you play, but that's not the game we've built. It's not about the house winning, but rather about you playing a competitive game. Ideally, all the teams would be filled with human coaches, but we know that's not going to happen, so to keep the game competitive, we treat Sim AI teams and their coaching similar to a basic level of human coaching. Some people want to equate a Sim AI team to a coachless team, but there's a BIG difference between a team with a human coach that isn't playing and a Sim AI team. Granted, I think many things can be improved for Sim AI teams, especially around recruiting, but I don't think they should ever be automatic wins. We also have to keep Sim AI teams relatively competitive due to the nature of how users take over teams. We'd have to change a lot about the game to remove the way Sim AI teams are treated.

As for Sim AI teams in the beta, they are unnaturally more talented at this point than usual due to the fact that every team had players generated and placed on the teams so that you could pick a team. Players are generated before users take teams so there's no concept of Sim AI team versus human team at that point. There are many Sim AI teams (teams that no users had picked) that have great players on them. While game plans are hopefully more relevant now, a Sim AI team using the basic balanced game plan is going to do pretty well with great players.

If the randomness of the the game is so changed then why under tests games with no changes to either team, is there such a difference in the outcomes of the games? I stick by what I said. Human players are playing against the house. Every extra dollar a player spends driving off SIMs is a win for the house and the established teams. Every time a SIM upsets a human team it is a win for the house and established teams. When a crappy human team wins a game it shouldn't, it is as out of line as SIM winning. I have a real problem with SIMs going to Conf Championships and Playoffs. That is the House taking spots that should be held by paying customers for the prizes of the game. That is the House, ergo WIS, further stacking the deck to keep the paying customers from the rewards. What drives me nuts is this community here and WIS both think I am complaining about the game because I am a sore loser or something. My record is fine. I've won a lot more than I've lost. This is a game and at least at the start of career everybody should start at the same place. The Cherry picking of teams should be eliminated. A simple change in SIM recruiting would end most of the problems I see in the game. The SIMs recruit AFTER humans are finished. A simple standard SIM team with very low base players should be reverted to when a player gives up a team. That eliminates the cherry picking. When a team gets beaten by a SIM team it should be because it has done terribly in recruiting. Not because it is a throw of the dice.

Beta is 10x better than the current engine...I used to think the current engine wasn't random...well that's when I had ****** teams. Now I've got great teams and happen to lose to inferior teams often (coin flip 1/2) driving me mad. I'm letting my current 5 pack run out and I'm sad to say that I'm done. Unless beta is released main stream soon in the next 3-4 months. Hopefully we can get all the tweaks out of it by then!

Posted by norbert on 4/23/2013 10:10:00 AM (view original):Actually the play results have changed considerably. They still need some tweaking, sure, but they are quite a bit different than 2.0 and I've posted the details many times. But the proof is in the pudding and if you don't think you see changes, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong.

As far as Sim AI teams always losing, that might be a philosophy on whatever other site you play, but that's not the game we've built. It's not about the house winning, but rather about you playing a competitive game. Ideally, all the teams would be filled with human coaches, but we know that's not going to happen, so to keep the game competitive, we treat Sim AI teams and their coaching similar to a basic level of human coaching. Some people want to equate a Sim AI team to a coachless team, but there's a BIG difference between a team with a human coach that isn't playing and a Sim AI team. Granted, I think many things can be improved for Sim AI teams, especially around recruiting, but I don't think they should ever be automatic wins. We also have to keep Sim AI teams relatively competitive due to the nature of how users take over teams. We'd have to change a lot about the game to remove the way Sim AI teams are treated.

As for Sim AI teams in the beta, they are unnaturally more talented at this point than usual due to the fact that every team had players generated and placed on the teams so that you could pick a team. Players are generated before users take teams so there's no concept of Sim AI team versus human team at that point. There are many Sim AI teams (teams that no users had picked) that have great players on them. While game plans are hopefully more relevant now, a Sim AI team using the basic balanced game plan is going to do pretty well with great players.

Norbert, this makes perfect sense. Talent and gameplanning clearly matter in the beta. SIMs are far more talented than in older worlds, so gameplanning means more at this stage. As humans coach and recruit, the talent gap should widen. That said, cause and effect is pretty clear in 3.0. When my teams have lost, I've never had a problem understanding why. I like 3.0, even with its warts and think you're definitely on the right path.

Just lost in the Bava DII quarters to a team that didn't have my talent level. What they DID have was a coach that understood the game-plans better than I did, and exploited my few weaknesses while preventing me from attacking HIS weaknesses. I test gamed it about 20 times, and I won comfortably more than half, but unfortunately my punter shanked one from my 11 and gave it to him on my 25. Was that luck? Was it luck when Colt McCoy got knocked out in the 1st series against Alabama? Maybe, but that's football. The difference is now we can actually SEE cause and effect. I know my punter sucks, and the game results back that up. Benedict caught a break, and made that mistake stand up in the 2nd half, then hit one of the weaknesses in my GP to ice the game. Welcome to real football.

Posted by scrodz on 4/23/2013 10:30:00 PM (view original):Just lost in the Bava DII quarters to a team that didn't have my talent level. What they DID have was a coach that understood the game-plans better than I did, and exploited my few weaknesses while preventing me from attacking HIS weaknesses. I test gamed it about 20 times, and I won comfortably more than half, but unfortunately my punter shanked one from my 11 and gave it to him on my 25. Was that luck? Was it luck when Colt McCoy got knocked out in the 1st series against Alabama? Maybe, but that's football. The difference is now we can actually SEE cause and effect. I know my punter sucks, and the game results back that up. Benedict caught a break, and made that mistake stand up in the 2nd half, then hit one of the weaknesses in my GP to ice the game. Welcome to real football.

LOL you lost to a human and the #1 ranked team in DII. Makes all the difference. You did NOT have the better team. Not by a long shot. Deen you got it wrong. Not spoken like a true football man but by someone trying trash someone else. You're pathetic scrodz.

Posted by grindi on 4/24/2013 7:53:00 AM (view original):LOL you lost to a human and the #1 ranked team in DII. Makes all the difference. You did NOT have the better team. Not by a long shot. Deen you got it wrong. Not spoken like a true football man but by someone trying trash someone else. You're pathetic scrodz.

Maybe your problem is you don't know how to evaluate your team. If you look on the right side of the PBP, at the bottom of the box score, it shows you the relative strengths of both teams by position.

Obviously I don't know what you are talking about. I have no such thing. I can click on the green xo in the pbp and see the fatigue level but nowhere does it show me the strength of the position. You could sub a crappy player in and get 100. In your game you got beat by the #1 ranked team. If that was the only evidence I would say the game is working properly. I looked at the player rankings of both teams and he had the better team.

Also as for game planning it he used pretty much the same defense based around the5-2 all season and he has 3 offenses all based around the ND and Trips. I doubt if he changed anything for the game

In test games, grindi. Thats where you see the talent breakdown. Those talent breakdowns hold significant water. If they are relatively even, thats when you see the most variability. And if we are going to see that variability it should be when teams are evenly matched. I've seen more variability in close matches then I have when one team is vastly superior unless the team has a gp advantage. This is all deduced by looking at the test game talent breakdown by position.